Echo Beach Tide Pools

By Keith Alan Johnson
05-01-2000

         Every year at this time I attend a science fiction convention. I've been attending this particular one since 1980. Every year I come away with something different. This year is no exception.
          I only attended one panel in all the four days I was there. The rest of the time I spent socializing with people. They were the same people I see every month anyway. Still it was very refreshing and entertaining, mostly because it was a change of pace. We did have a great room party for our writer's group. A friend of mine summed it up very well in his essay this week. You can read his "Laughter is the Best Medicine"  at his Sans Fig Leaf page. (It also contains a good bit about dealing with stress.)
          For me this year's convention brought about a significant change in my life. Perhaps it's a sign of my age, or maybe I'm just getting wiser. Throughout the convention there were moments where I would misread a program guide or a menu or an advertisement. My friends around me would have a good laugh at my expense. One night at Denney's, our perennial convention meal location, I misread the menu and everyone handed me their glasses. It didn't bother me much, yet it got me to thinking. I've never had bad vision. It's never been perfect either. Lately, I've been pursuing my dreams; the dreams that I wrote about in "That Little Voice". I haven't had my eyes checked since the early eighties. Perhaps, with my desire to write and draw more, it was time to check again.
          Monday, the day after the con, I made an appointment. The results were the same as they were back in the eighties, 20/20 in one eye and 20/45 in the other. It wasn't perfect, but it was fine enough for driving without corrective lenses. As I drove home I contemplated the result. If I want to pursue and develop some artistic talent wouldn't it behoove me to be able to see clearly what it is I am writing or drawing?
          Tuesday I went back and ordered the glasses. I was surprised to have them in a half hour. The man behind the counter handed me the glasses.
          "How does it look?" he asked
          I looked about the room rather confused. "It feels like I'm wearing 3D glasses."
          "Well yes," he said.
          "Wait a minute!" I looked all about the room. "This is the way it's suppose to be, isn't it?"
          I had trouble with it at first. It reminded me of an experiment someone did with kittens years ago. They raised them in a room with vertical stripes on the walls. When they placed them in a room with horizontal stripes the poor things kept bumping their heads.
          That's how I felt at first. I felt like something was obscuring my vision, but I couldn't deny I could see better then before. I was completely unaware of what I wasn't seeing. I was moving through a somewhat two-dimensional world, and then suddenly I'm knocked into the third dimension. Of course I've never missed anything before, so naturally I would be unaware of it.
          Now that my vision has been corrected and I'm using both eyes, I've run into a new problem. I'm a candidate for bifocal lenses. Initially I turned them down as the optometrist told me I could get by without them. I went back to order them on Wednesday. Oddly I look forward to receiving them. I can't wait to see what else I've been missing.